The 35th Street Review

Strange times get stranger at the Chicago Tribune:

• Owner sam Zell is being sued by his employees. . .
• . . . their most valuable asset is under fire for receiving scheduling favors from Major League Baseball. . .
• . . . the biggest news in local sports media isn’t local sports news but news about local sports media. . .
• . . . and now, reports the same paper who recently recused themselves from covering such matters, employees of said asset are not-so-subtly lobbying for a new ballpark just as Sam Zell is trying to sell someone the old park. No one insists the Tribsters bury their heads in the sand about the future of the Cubs and the real estate they play on, but how editorially indifferent can they really be (or even claim to be) when Cubs beat reporter Paul Sullivan actually writes “Is Zambrano crazy, or should the Cubs abandon Wrigley Field and build a modern facility like Miller Park?”

I try to run a fairly news-ignorant operation here, but this was too good to pass up: Cubs fans accused of beating White Sox fan, says the Associated Press by way of the Chicago Tribune. Despite not mentioning what actually led to said assault, their trusty copywriter apparently deemed the baseball allegiances to be the most important element of what happened. This is called “baiting the reader,” more bluntly referred to as sensationalism, but more importantly just about the saddest commentary on the state of news in America yet for either of two reasons.

• Pitting this as a Cubs/Sox thing is the only way to get readers around here.
• Savage, non-sports-related beatings are not news in and of themselves anymore.

So much for giving the audience credit.

If you, like me, grew up in or around Chicago in the pre-Internet days, you got your baseball news from the box scores but you got the story from the great Jerome Holtzman. This town has seen its share of sportswriters good and bad, but Holtzman was without a doubt one of the former. Today he took his seat in the great press box in the sky.

Jerome Holtzman | 1926-2008 [Chicago Tribune]

The Tribune refuses to report or comment on the prospect of a public sale of Wrigley Field. Does that sound noble? Don’t believe the hype.

Want a great deal on rent in Chicago? Try building a stadium.